Outlying Islands

by David Greig

In 1939, on the eve of the Second World War, two young Cambridge ornithologists arrive on a remote, uninhabited Scottish island, sent by the government to survey the island's birds. With them on the island are Kirk, the authoritarian leaseholder, and his niece Ellen, a young woman in love with the stars of silent comedy. Left alone on a scrap of land surrounded by the vast Atlantic, they observe each other.

Poetic, intense and gripping, Outlying Islands is a glimpse of an innocence, a way of seeing and a way of being young that is about to be destroyed forever.

Outlying Islands was premi�red at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in July 2002 and transferred to the Royal Court, London in Autumn 2002.

Genres: Plays

128 pages, Paperback

First published July 22, 2002

About the author

David Greig is a Scottish dramatist. He was born in Edinburgh in 1969 and brought up in Nigeria. He studied drama at Bristol University and is now a well-known writer and director of plays. He has been commissioned by the Royal Court, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company and was Artistic Director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh from 2015 until 2025, when he left to return to writing.

His first play was produced in Glasgow in 1992 and he has written many plays since, produced worldwide. In 1990 he co-founded Suspect Culture Theatre Group with Graham Eatough in Glasgow.

His translations include Camus' Caligula (2003), Candide 2000, and When the Bulbul Stopped Singing, based on a book by Raja Shehadeh. Danmy 306 + Me (4 ever) (1999) is a play written for children.

David Greig's plays include The American Pilot (2005), about America's involvement in the Middle East and Eastern Europe; Pyrenees (2005) about a man who is found in the foothills of the Pyrenees, having lost his memory; and San Diego (2003), a journey through the American dream. His latest works are Gobbo, a modern- day fairytale; Herges Adverntures of Tintin, an adaptation; Yellow Moon (2006); and Damascus (2007)

Reviews

[Leif · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful! Inhabiting a space more often liked by birds and sheep, Greig's men and women find themselves adrift on the islands; as one character, perhaps cynically, describes another character:

He's beautiful too. His is the beauty of absence. The way an outlying island is more beautiful than the mainland. Things art a distance are always more attractive -- a girl, a hill.
Looking at him you see life, at a distance, receding.
Looking at her, and looking at him, you realize that when people say the dead look as if they're asleep -- they are either not looking closely enough at death, or they are not looking closely enough at sleep.

There's much here in drama of the interpersonal and metaphysical kinds, and it is all very, very well done.

[Tom Wein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wild and poised, an exceptional play of English civilization stripped away. A boon to read a play again, even if I cannot go to see one.

[Martha-Rose McKeown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting!

[Kristina W · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a book, 3-stars, but taking into account the fact it's a play, I think I'd enjoy it live. So I rounded the rating upward and decided it is a 4. Aside from "birding" and "isolation", I had no preconceptions. Again, a live performance would likely make it a more gripping story, having some of the psychology of the roles played out, rather than merely read. Quick read! It's fairly short.

[Brenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two ornithologists travel to a remote Scottish island to ostensibly study the native bird population. They meet up with the island's lone inhabitants, an old man and his niece, and find that there is more to observe than just the wild life.

Greig's style is always lyrical without being flimsy, poetic without being false. In this particular piece he take on the subjects of innocence in a tumultuous world, avarice at the price of beauty and morality, and the strange ways of human desire. His writing always hints at larger concerns that what is simply said by the characters. He also ably creates haunting emotional and physical landscapes.